'Care now has to be rationed': Los Angeles COVID-19 spike is crushing hospitals

Grace Hauck, USA TODAY

As COVID-19 continues to overwhelm California hospitals, Los Angeles County officials are trying to ration medical supplies and hospital space.

The Los Angeles Emergency Medical Services Agency issued two memos Monday instructing emergency responders to limit the use of supplemental oxygen and not transport patients who cannot be revived in the field.

"Given the acute need to conserve oxygen, effective immediately, EMS should only administer supplemental oxygen to patients with oxygen saturation below 90%," one memo said. Oxygen saturation at that threshold and above allows for sufficient blood flow in most patients, the memo said.

Adults experiencing cardiac arrest should not be transported to the hospital if they cannot be resuscitated in the field, according to the other memo. Patients whose hearts have stopped and, despite attempts to resuscitate, show no sign of breathing or movement, should be determined dead at the scene and should not be transported, the memo said.

"We are not abandoning resuscitation," Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill, medical director of the agency, told CBSLA. "We are emphasizing the fact that transporting these patients arrested leads to very poor outcomes. We knew that already and we just don’t want to impact our hospitals."

Your COVID vaccine questions, answered: I already had COVID, should I get the vaccine?

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ambulances are still having to wait many hours to offload patients to the emergency room, Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county director of health services, said Monday. The county was encouraging people to only come to the emergency department or call 911 for medical or psychiatric emergencies, Ghaly said.

"Many hospitals have reached a point of crisis and are having to make very tough decisions about patient care," Ghaly said. "EMS is working with all hospitals across the region to relieve the pressure on, especially, the smaller facilities."

Cases are skyrocketing in Los Angeles County, which has now reached more than 800,000 cases, County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis said Monday.

"It took ten months to hit 400,000 cases, but we have reached another 400,000 within the last month alone. That is a human disaster and one that was avoidable," Solis said. "But I need to underscore that it could be worse. The situation is already beyond our imagination, but it could become beyond comprehension if the health restrictions in place are not fully obeyed."

Hospitals are declaring internal disasters and opening gyms to serve as health care units, Solis said. Oxygen is in high demand, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews arrived in the county Saturday to update oxygen delivery systems in the area.

"We are pushing the limits of the hospital infrastructure," Solis said. "... Care now has to be rationed."

As of Sunday, nearly 8,000 coronavirus patients were in county hospitals, according to state data. More than 1,600 coronavirus patients were in the ICU, and just 326 ICU beds were available.

A person is dying from COVID-19 every 15 minutes in the county, which could soon be looking at weekly death tolls of 1,000 or more, County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Monday.

The surge in cases is "distressing" for people who may need access to emergency care, Ferrer said. "People who have a stroke or a heart attack or experience a traumatic injury from a car crash are finding it more difficult to access care compared to months ago," she said.

The surge is the early result of an anticipated uptick following holiday gatherings, Ferrer said.

"We’re likely to experience the worst conditions in January that we’ve faced the entire pandemic, and that’s hard to imagine," Ferrer said. "The increases in cases are likely to continue for weeks to come."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID-19 in California: Los Angeles to limit hospital transports

Latest Stories

  • GOP congressman who eked out victory in Biden district will join Electoral College objectors

    Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) became the latest congressional Republican to announce he'll object to the Electoral College certification on Wednesday. Garcia said that while he's a "federalist, I do believe there is enough evidence of compromised processes and break downs in election integrity by certain state legislatures that do in fact warrant a closer examination."At first glance, Garcia's decision to join his colleagues in challenging President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory isn't particularly noteworthy. There are more than 140 House Republicans who are on board, as well as a dozen known senators who plan on supporting them. But Garcia doesn't appear to fit the mold of a lawmaker attempting to satisfy a voter base "in deep red districts" calling for their representatives to do something about unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud. Instead, Garcia narrowly eked out a narrow November victory in a district that Biden won by around 10 percent.> This is notable because Garcia won by 0.2 percentage points in November. The Kraken stuff is not just from members in deep-red districts. https://t.co/nVeapjxDGB> > — Jeff Dufour (@dcdufour) January 4, 2021Theoretically, embracing this movement could mean Garcia is risking certain swing voters down the line, and his 2020 returns suggest he doesn't have a huge safety net.More stories from theweek.com McConnell stares down the barrel of Trump's gun Are we witnessing the fall of the United States? After getting vaccinated, New Orleans woman delivers a blunt message to non-believers

  • Ex-chairman of China Huarong Asset Management sentenced to death

    BEIJING (Reuters) -The former chairman of China Huarong Asset Management Co has been sentenced to death, a court in the northern city of Tianjin said on Tuesday, in one of the country's highest profile corruption cases. Lai Xiaomin was convicted of receiving or seeking bribes totalling 1.788 billion yuan ($276.72 million) from 2008 to 2018, when he was also a senior banking regulator, according to the Secondary Intermediate People's Court of Tianjin. Lai, who was expelled from the ruling Communist Party in 2018, was also convicted on a charge of bigamy.

  • Judge nixes latest Trump bid to invalidate Georgia election

    A federal judge rejected President Donald Trump's latest bid to overturn his election loss in Georgia during a hearing Tuesday that the president's lawyer blocked members of the public from listening to remotely amid the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. District Judge Mark H. Cohen ruled from the bench to deny a motion seeking to de-certify Georgia's election. Officials across the country have routinely allowed members of the media and the public to watch or listen to legal proceedings remotely throughout the coronavirus pandemic to keep people from packing courthouses.

  • 11 Storage Beds to Keep You Organized in 2021

    Read on for space-saving, clutter-clearing magicOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Wisconsin Gov. Activates National Guard ahead of Charging Decision in Kenosha Police Shooting

    Wisconsin governor Tony Evers mobilized the National Guard on Monday to provide support to law enforcement in Kenosha, ahead of an expected decision on whether to press charges a police shooting.A Kenosha officer shot Jacob Blake, an African American man, in August while responding to a domestic violence call. Authorities had issued an arrest warrant for Blake for suspected third-degree sexual assault. A white officer shot Blake several times during the attempted arrest, and Blake was left paralyzed from the waist down.Video of Blake's shooting quickly went viral and was followed by a week of riots in Kenosha, during which rioters destroyed dozens of businesses in the city. The riots came in the wake of widespread civil unrest after the police killing of George Floyd, an African American resident of Minneapolis.The Kenosha County District Attorney's Office is expected to announce a decision on whether to charge the officer who shot Blake sometime within last two weeks of January. Governor Evers ordered the National Guard to provide 500 service members to assist Kenosha law enforcement ahead of the district attorney's decision."We are continuing to work with our local partners in the Kenosha area to ensure they have the state support they need, just as we have in the past,” Evers told reporters on Monday. “Our members of the National Guard will be on hand to support local first responders, ensure Kenoshans are able to assemble safely, and to protect critical infrastructure as necessary.”Kenosha mayor John Antaramian and police chief Daniel Miskinis said in a joint statement that the city was preparing for possible unrest."Mayor Antaramian has been informed that the decision is likely to be announced within the first two weeks of January and is working with Chief Miskinis and other partners to protect peaceful demonstration and to guard against unlawful activity," the two said. "Our responsibility to public safety is paramount, and we are preparing for a number of possible public demonstration and safety efforts."

  • U.S. can break free of its dependence on China by rebuilding Puerto Rico’s pharmaceutical industry | Opinion

    The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the precarious state of U.S. pharmaceutical supply chains. Americans have finally begun to realize how much we rely on China — an increasingly hostile geopolitical competitor — for the essential medicines necessary to save lives. It is crucial that we fix this dangerous dependence.

  • America's COVID-19 vaccine effort is 'total chaos,' should add first come, first served option, vaccine expert says

    The U.S. kicked off a second phase of its COVID-19 vaccine campaign on Monday, when health care workers and others at the top of the tiered system began getting their second and final doses of the vaccine. But the rollout of the inoculation effort has been "slow and uneven," The Associated Press reports, "marked by confusion, logistical hurdles, and a patchwork of approaches by state and local authorities."The Trump administration set a goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by Jan. 1, but as of Jan. 4, only 4.5 million had gotten their first shot, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, out of 15 million doses distributed. There is some resistance to getting vaccinated, but much of the problem seems to be logistics, Politico reports. States are simply struggling to match vaccine shots with the people who want and are qualified to get them. The effort has also been hampered by ineffective communication plans, the lack of any meaningful national outreach and education campaign, and a fractured, sagging health care system."It's total chaos," Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told Politico. "It's increasingly looking like we had a plan that was well-suited to vaccinate Singapore." The U.S. needs to inoculate about a million people a day to get the pandemic contained by September, and Hotez said America won't get those numbers under the current plan. He told Politico the U.S. should scrap its tiered system and supplement the doses shipped to nursing homes and hospitals with mass vaccination venues, like sports stadiums or outdoor tents, where anyone who wanted the vaccine could show up for a shot. "That is in the works in some states," Politico notes.The U.S. needs to "get the vaccine in people's arms," Hoetz said. "The only other choice is to continue with 3,000 deaths a day."More stories from theweek.com McConnell stares down the barrel of Trump's gun Are we witnessing the fall of the United States? After getting vaccinated, New Orleans woman delivers a blunt message to non-believers

  • Trump allies scrambling for strategy to overturn Biden win

    Republican lawmakers who are orchestrating an unprecedented attempt to overturn Joe Biden's election win over President Donald Trump have not settled on a full strategy ahead of Wednesday's joint session of Congress to confirm the Electoral College vote. With mounting desperation, Trump declared at a campaign rally in Georgia Monday that he would “fight like hell” to hold on to the presidency and he appealed to Republican lawmakers to reverse his election loss. A late-night meeting convened by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reached few conclusions, according to two Republicans familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.

  • Most U.S. COVID-19 vaccines go idle as New York, Florida move to penalize hospitals

    NEW YORK (Reuters) -More than two-thirds of the 15 million coronavirus vaccines shipped within the United States have gone unused, U.S. health officials said on Monday, as the governors of New York and Florida vowed to penalize hospitals that fail to dispense shots quickly. In New York, hospitals must administer vaccines within a week of receiving them or face a fine and a reduction in future supplies, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, hours before announcing the state's first known case of a new, more infectious coronavirus variant originally detected in Britain. "I don't want the vaccine in a fridge or a freezer, I want it in somebody's arm," the governor said.

  • He was stopped for not using turn signals. Police said he was dealing cocaine

    A Miami cocaine dealer was jailed Monday morning after bringing more than six ounces of the drug into the Florida Keys, police said.

  • After getting vaccinated, New Orleans woman delivers a blunt message to non-believers

    Maureen Weil received the coronavirus vaccine Monday in New Orleans, and the 79-year-old hopes all of her fellow Americans follow in her footsteps.In an interview with NBC News, Weil said she felt "excited" and "blessed" to be among the first people to get the vaccine. "I have a chance to see a few more days on this Earth because I'm protected," Weil said. "I believe in science."When asked what she would tell people who question the vaccine and don't want to receive it, Weil responded, "I call them stupid because -- that or either a buffoon. Because that's the only thing I could think of that could justify their stupidity."She said a lot of people don't believe in the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 350,000 Americans, because "they listen to the man that's in Washington, D.C., that's on his way out the door talking about how it's all a hoax and all that bullcorn. And he shouldn't be doing that because that's peoples' lives. Look at the parents who've died and left young children. I mean, it's sad."Getting the vaccine "didn't hurt," Weil said, and now she has "peace of mind," and "knows one thing for sure. I'm gonna save somebody else's life by protecting myself. I won't get the corona so I can't spread it to anybody else. So that gives me a little satisfaction that I'm doing it not just for myself but for others." Americans "have to believe in science," Weil said. "There's no other way. When we didn't have a vaccine we were really up the creek, weren't we? And we had a hole in the boat. But we got a vaccine, so we got safety." > "I know one thing for sure. I'm gonna save somebody else's life by protecting myself.> > ... > Because then I won't get the corona so I can't spread it to anybody else." > -Maureen Weil, coronavirus vaccine recipient pic.twitter.com/TSecX57iAu> > -- Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) January 5, 2021More stories from theweek.com McConnell stares down the barrel of Trump's gun Are we witnessing the fall of the United States? Trump's claim that Pence can 'reject fraudulently chosen electors' quickly shot down

  • Iran claims South Korea holding £5bn of its money 'hostage' after tanker seizure

    The Iranian government has accused South Korea of holding more than £5 billion of its money “hostage” in its banks, a day after its revolutionary guards stormed and captured a Korean tanker in the Persian Gulf. The tanker, the MT Hankuk Chemi, was seized yesterday and escorted to an Iranian port under the pretext that it was causing pollution in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iranian officials. But the ship’s owners have denied this and revealed the tanker was boarded by armed marines from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), suggesting that Tehran intends to use it as leverage in a dispute with Seoul over frozen Iranian assets. Ali Rabiei, a spokesman for the Islamic regime, denied accusations of “hostage diplomacy” over the capture of the ship, which was carrying a cargo 7,200 tonnes of ethanol from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates when it was intercepted by IRGC speedboats and a helicopter off the coast of Oman. “We've become used to such allegations ... but if there is any hostage-taking, it is Korea's government that is holding $7 billion (£5.15 billion) which belongs to us hostage on baseless grounds,” Mr Rabiei told reporters at a news conference streamed online. Tehran has previously accused South Korea of being a “lackey” of the United States and demanded it release the money which it says it is owed from oil sales made before the Trump administration tightened sanctions on the Islamic republic. The head of Iran's central bank has argued that it needs the money to purchase coronavirus vaccines, and should be exempt from sanctions.

  • Trump's 'smoking gun' tape is worse than Nixon's, but congressional Republicans have less incentive to do anything about it

    At least Donald Trump’s “smoking gun” tape is simpler than Richard Nixon’s. Schoolchildren can easily grasp Trump’s high crime, in contrast to the complex, Machiavellian plot immortalized on the tape that led to Nixon’s downfall. It will be harder to explain to them why congressional Republicans decided to hold Nixon accountable, but not Trump.It certainly wasn’t for lack of evidence. The tape is clear. Children can identify the principle at stake. They understand cheating. They know that the loser of a race should not declare himself the winner. They know it’s wrong for the loser to try to change the results of the race by threatening those who keep the score and enforce the rules. Presidential coercionThat is what Trump, the loser of the 2020 election, tried to do to the top election official in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in a phone call on Saturday. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump said. Trump lost Georgia by 11,779 votes. To pressure this state official to do his bidding, Trump brandished the threat of criminal prosecution. He claimed – falsely, baselessly and ridiculously – that Georgia’s ballots were corrupt even as he was trying to corrupt them himself: > “You are going to find that they are – which is totally illegal – it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan [Germany], your lawyer.”The nature of this threat (nice place you got here, hate to see anything happen to it … or to you) won’t be lost on anyone familiar with mobster movies. Trump’s take on the tough-guy cliché wasn’t particularly coherent, but it met the trope’s two basic requirements. It was both clear enough to be unmistakable, and vague enough to minimize his own exposure to criminal prosecution.[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.] Congress then – and nowIn contrast, Nixon’s “smoking gun” tape defies simple summary, as I was reminded last year while trying to summarize it during an interview with French public television on “le scandale du Watergate.” I get asked such questions as the author of “Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate.”The Nixon tape captured just one small part of the Watergate cover-up. But its release led congressional Republicans to call on Nixon to resign or face removal. Now, faced with taped evidence that the president is abusing the power of his office to launch a direct assault on majority rule and the integrity of the vote, the foundations of American democracy, most congressional Republicans either do nothing or actively support Trump.What changed? Less than meets the eye. The impact of Nixon’s “smoking gun” tape had less to do with its contents – and the content of the character of congressional Republicans – than with the timing. As historian Mark Nevin notes, Nixon’s “smoking gun” tape went public at the right time to make a difference. It came out in August 1974, when congressional Republicans had their primaries behind them and were looking ahead to the November congressional elections. Until they won their primaries, their main worry had been losing their base, which was strongly pro-Nixon, no matter how much evidence came out that the president had broken the law, abused the power of his office and tried to cover it up. Going into the general election, however, congressional Republicans had to worry about losing the middle, the moderates, the swing voters who were disgusted by the daily revelations of White House wrongdoing.Before congressional Republicans won their primaries, it was politically convenient for them to stick with the president, so they did. After their primaries, and before the general election, it was politically convenient for them to distance themselves from the president, so they did. How 2020 is and isn’t different from 1974With the 2020 presidential election behind us, we’re now in the 2022 congressional primary season and 2024 Republican presidential primary season. This means that for most Republican officeholders and office seekers, the path of least political resistance is to stick with Trump, even if that path leads away from democracy and equality under law and toward authoritarianism and a hollowed-out republic-in-name-only.By putting constitutional principle over lockstep partisanship, Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger and countless state and local Republican election officials, along with a small number of congressional Republicans, have demonstrated their commitment to honest elections. The strength and political courage they have shown, however impressive and essential in the present crisis, are not enough to stop the nation’s slide from democracy. Many congressional Republicans, as big fish in red states or hatchery fish in the protective habitat of gerrymandered districts, have little incentive to serve the majority of American voters. Until they have to either represent the majority or lose their positions of power, they likely will do neither.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Ken Hughes, University of Virginia.Read more: * Congressional Republicans abandon constitutional heritage and Watergate precedents in defense of Trump * Will Trump’s use of executive privilege help him avoid congressional oversight? It didn’t help Richard NixonKen Hughes is a researcher with the Presidential Recordings Program of the University of Virginia's Miller Center. The program's work is funded in part by grants from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

  • Colombia's illegal armed groups lost more than 5,000 members in 2020 -military commander

    BOGOTA (Reuters) -Colombian illegal armed groups lost roughly 5,120 members in 2020 as the country's armed forces continued operations amidst the coronavirus pandemic to weaken them and stop them from growing in size and territory, said General Luis Fernando Navarro. The figure includes combat deaths, captures, and desertions affecting the National Liberation Army (ELN), dissidents of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who rejected a 2016 peace deal, and other armed groups including Clan del Golfo, Los Caparros, and Los Pelusos, Navarro said. All five armed groups are linked to drug trafficking and illegal mining, he added.

  • Woman pleads guilty after threatening to bomb gay-inclusive Catholic school

    The threats were made after the all-girls high school started to include same-sex wedding announcements in its alumni magazine.

  • If I’ve already had the coronavirus, can I get it again?

    In one, only two out of 1,265 health workers in the United Kingdom who were previously infected ended up testing positive again for the coronavirus in the following six months. In another study of people in the U.S., only 0.3% of people who had been infected tested positive for the virus over the next several months – around the same rate of positivity as the U.K study. The AP is answering your questions about the coronavirus in this series.

  • Georgia election official on Trump call: ‘Nobody I know who would be president would do something like that’

    Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling condemned President Trump’s call with Georgia’s secretary of state, saying, “I personally found it to be something that was not normal, out of place and nobody I know who would be president would do something like that to a secretary of state."

  • Trump evidently thinks Pence can still hand him the election. That's very awkward for Pence.

    Washington, D.C., is bracing for Wednesday, when an array of supporters of President Trump descend on the capital as Congress meets to formally count President-elect Joe Biden's win. "The MAGA crowd is trying to pressure Vice President Mike Pence and Republican lawmakers to refuse to seat Biden over fabricated voter-fraud claims," Politico's Tina Nguyen reports. "It's a doomed plan, given the makeup of Congress, the absent evidence behind the rigged election allegations, and the fact that every important state has already certified Biden's win."But Trump evidently believes, incorrectly, that Pence can sway the outcome of Wednesday's pro forma joint session of Congress, which he will preside over in his role as Senate president. "I hope Mike Pence comes through for us," Trump said at a rally in Georgia on Monday night. "If he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much." That may have been a joke, but in private, Trump has "directly pressed Mr. Pence to find an alternative to certifying Mr. Biden's win, such as preventing him from having 270 electoral votes and letting the election be thrown to the House to decide," The New York Times reports. Pence's duties are actually very limited.Trump thinks "Pence's role will be akin to that of chief justice, an arbiter who plays a role in the outcome," the Times reports. "In reality, it will be more akin to the presenter opening the Academy Award envelope and reading the name of the movie that won Best Picture, with no say in determining the winner." This Washington Post video explains the process and why the GOP challenge is doomed to failure."President Trump's real understanding of this process is minimal," Scott Reed, a Republican strategist, told the Times. Pence's aides view his role as largely ceremonial, the Times adds, but one Pence confidante said it will be "gut-wrenching" for the loyal vice president to declare Biden the winner on television, and Pence "will need to balance the president's misguided beliefs about government with his own years of preaching deference to the Constitution."Pence has scrapped a planned post-certification trip abroad, so after doing his scripted duties on Wednesday, "he will have to compensate by showing his fealty" to Trump, the Times reports, citing members of Pence's inner circle. The types of display of fealty are reportedly still being worked out.More stories from theweek.com McConnell stares down the barrel of Trump's gun Are we witnessing the fall of the United States? After getting vaccinated, New Orleans woman delivers a blunt message to non-believers

  • The Earth is spinning faster now than at any time in the past half century

    If 2020 felt like a drag, you may be surprised to discover it actually went faster than you thought ... and this year is set to be even speedier. The Earth has been spinning unusually quickly lately, and July 19 saw the shortest day since records began, with the planet completing its rotation in 1.4602 milliseconds less than the usual 86,400 seconds. The previous shortest day in 2005 was beaten 28 times last year, and 2021 is on track to be the most nippy year ever, with the average day passing 0.5 milliseconds faster than usual. The changes to the length of a standard day were only discovered after highly accurate atomic clocks were developed in the 1960s and compared to fixed stars in the sky. In recent decades, Earth's average rotational speed has consistently decreased and timekeepers have been forced to add 27 leap seconds to atomic time since the 1970s to keep clocks in sync with the slowing planet. The last one was added on New Year’s Eve 2016, when clocks around the world paused for a second to allow the Earth’s rotation to catch up. Then, BT's speaking clock added a second's pause before its third pip while Radio 4 inserted an extra pip to its 1am bulletin.

  • Georgia runoff election results – live: Exit polls show record turnout as officials say when results may come

    Follow the latest updates